69 responses to “April 30, 2010 — Contents”

MOSCOW — Russia’s parliament is considering a government-drafted bill that would increase the power of the security services and restore practices once associated with their Soviet predecessor, the KGB.

The legislation would allow Federal Security Service officers to summon individuals for informal talks and issue written warnings about “inadmissible” participation in anti-government activities such as protest rallies. It also appeared aimed at tightening controls on journalists.

It was unclear when the bill would come up for a vote, and in the meantime it could be amended or even scuttled. But in its current form the legislation continues a trend under Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, who has allowed the security services to steadily regain power and influence at the expense of Russia’s nascent democracy.

Since coming to power in 2000, Putin, now prime minister, has created an obedient parliament, abolished direct gubernatorial elections, presided over the reining in of non-state national television and cracked down on political dissent.

Like many of the past restrictions, the proposed new measures were described as part of an effort to combat extremism.

An explanatory note said some news organizations “propagate the cult of individualism, violence and mistrust in the government’s capacity to protect its citizens, virtually drawing the youth to extremism.”

Journalists who refuse to follow the demands of security officers or prevent them from fulfilling their duties could face charges under the legislation.

The bill, submitted Saturday, followed the twin subway bombings last month that killed 40 people. One of the bombers hit the Lubyanka subway station, beneath the headquarters of the security service.

The speaker of parliament’s lower house, Boris Gryzlov, had sharply criticized two major Russian newspapers for their coverage, implying they had taken the side of the terrorists by noting that the attacks may have been motivated by the Kremlin’s harsh policy in the North Caucasus.

Human rights advocates and opposition leaders said the new measures could be used to violate the rights of government critics and further curtail media independence.

“I am shocked by how brazen they are,” said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the 82-year-old head of the Moscow Helsinki Group. “It’s not even like Soviet times, when they (KGB officers) were under Communist Party control.”

An opposition leader who has faced intimidation and pranks by pro-Kremlin youth groups said the law would only legitimize FSB officers’ abusive treatment of Kremlin critics and ordinary Russians.

“The FSB has had these rights without these laws,” said Ilya Yashin, who leads the youth movement of the liberal party Yabloko. “The situation is sickening, the public has no way of controlling them.”

A Communist Party lawmaker said he was concerned about vague wording that would leave the legislation open to interpretation.

“The law is written in such a way that makes it hard to guess how it would work in practice,” said Viktor Ilyukhin, a former prosecutor. “I have no doubts that it would open the way for arbitrary interpretations.”

The Communist Party is the last remaining faction that occasionally opposes Kremlin-backed bills in the State Duma, the lower house.

Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the opposition Yabloko party, tells RFE/RL’s Russian Service that the bill is a reaction to the wave of antigovernment protests that have swept Russia in recent months.

“This unties the FSB’s hands and allows them to psychologically pressure a large circle of people,” Mitrokhin says. “It will mostly affect political activists and opponents of the current authorities. Russia’s rulers are very frightened by the demonstrations that have taken place and are trying to react to this.”

Rights activists fear that the bill, if it becomes law, would revive the Soviet-era practice in which the KGB would “invite” citizens for “informal” talks about their activities and those of their associates — a common tactic used to harass dissidents.

Gennady Gudkov, the head of the A Just Russia faction, told the daily “Kommersant” that the bill revives “a Soviet-era practice that was used against dissidents and those who distributed ideologically harmful literature and engaged in similarly harmful conversations.”

Likewise, Viktor Ilyukhin of the Communist Party told “Kommersant” that “a warning can be given to anyone who criticizes the authorities.”

Despite opposition from A Just Russia and the Communists, the pro-Kremlin United Russia party has enough seats in the Duma to pass the legislation without the support of other parties.

Soviet-era dissident Lev Ponomaryov, the head of the For Human Rights movement, says the legislation continues the erosion of the rule of law in Russia that has been taking place over the past decade.

“If this law passes, it will be a very serious violation of the principle of the presumption of innocence,” Ponomaryov says. “It will strengthen the position of the security services and violate the spirit of the constitution. This will lead to a state not governed by law that is under the control of the security services.”

Russian Journalist Severely Beaten In Sochi
April 28, 2010
A journalist has been severely beaten in Russia’s Black Sea city of Sochi, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.

The former chief editor of the independent newspaper “Mestnaya” (The Local), Arkady Lander, was attacked on April 26 by several assailants and was hospitalized with a concussion and serious head injuries.

“Mestnaya” began publishing in Sochi in January, ahead of local elections held in March. It was free to readers and was funded by private contributions. It was often critical of Sochi city council officials. It stopped publishing after the elections.

Lander said the attack against him is connected with his professional activities.

Unpaid Russian Workers In Altai Krai Appeal To MedvedevApril 28, 2010
RUBTSOVSK, Russia — Tractor-plant workers in the central Russian town of Rubtsovsk have warned President Dmitry Medvedev that they will start a hunger strike unless they receive their overdue salaries, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.

Protest organizer Sergei Yurchenko, who is the first secretary of the Communist Party’s Rubtsovsk branch in the Altai Krai, told RFE/RL on April 27 that 40 workers are ready to start the hunger strike and more may join them.

The workers videotaped their demand to Medvedev and mailed it to him. They say previous letters to the president and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have not received any response.

The hunger strike was originally scheduled for May 9 but has been postponed until May 15. The workers have also started raising money to buy a plane ticket for Medvedev so that “he could come and see what has happened to the city’s plants and factories.”

Workers said that in addition to the unpaid back wages, the plant has been closed due to a lack of orders.

The Altai tractor plant’s administration reportedly owes its workers about $3 million in back wages.

The world’s press became less free in 2009, experiencing another year of setbacks. Among the top offenders were Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Iran, and Russia.
……
The Freedom House report assigns a numerical ranking to each country based on legal, political, and economic factors, and considers regulations that restrict media content, editorial pressure by the government, intimidation of journalists, and the structure of media ownership.
…….In Russia, which is seen as a benchmark for the non-Baltic states of the former Soviet Union, the government maintained its control over nearly all media outlets. The country’s press freedom rating worsened slightly in 2009 and earned a “not free” designation for the seventh straight year. It is now tied with The Gambia in 175th place out of the 196 countries surveyed.

Except for Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, all of which are designated as “free,” and Ukraine and Georgia, both of which are “partly free,” the nine remaining countries of the former Soviet Union join Russia in the “not free” category. That group includes three of the 10 worst offenders on the Freedom House list: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus. In these countries, independent media is “either nonexistent or barely able to operate.”

“Apart from individual journalists being under threat,” Walker says, “we also see the infrastructure of news media coming under the control of governments and the dominant powers [in the non-Baltic countries of the former Soviet Union], such that there isn’t any meaningful pluralism on the news and information that’s relevant.

Mr. Kadyrov, who is supported by the Kremlin and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, has denied any role in the killing of the whistle-blower, Umar S. Israilov, who was living in exile when he was fatally shot last year.

But the Austrian government’s investigators concluded that Mr. Kadyrov ordered that Mr. Israilov be kidnapped, and that the group of Chechens who tried to snatch Mr. Israilov from a Viennese street botched the job. One of them shot Mr. Israilov after he broke free and tried to escape, the investigators found.

Their conclusions, pointed and direct but based largely on circumstantial evidence, shift the focus now to Austria’s federal prosecutors’ office, which has been preparing indictments.

Three Chechen exiles are in custody in the case: Otto Kaltenbrunner, who is accused of being the local organizer of the crime; Muslim Dadayev, who is accused of monitoring Mr. Israilov’s movements before the crime and driving the getaway car; and Turpal Ali Yesherkayev, who is accused, with a fourth man, of confronting Mr. Israilov as he stepped from a grocery store and then chasing him as he fled.

The fourth suspect, Lecha Bogatirov, left Austria and returned to Russia after the killing, investigators found; he is suspected of shooting Mr. Israilov three times with a pistol.

Mr. Israilov, who was 27, was a former bodyguard and midlevel official in the paramilitary forces under Mr. Kadyrov’s command.

In 2006, after leaving Russia for asylum in Europe, he filed a complaint in the European Court of Human Rights in which he accused Mr. Kadyrov of participating in abductions, torture and murder as part of a Kremlin-backed counterinsurgency effort against separatists in Chechnya, a Russian republic.

Before he was killed Mr. Israilov said he had been threatened by an emissary from Mr. Kadyrov, and he asked for police protection, which was denied. In interviews with The New York Times while in hiding, he said that Mr. Kadyrov had “promised a bounty for me.”

Among the evidence the Austrian investigators found, said Gerhard Jarosch, a spokesman for the Vienna prosecutor’s office, was a digital picture in Mr. Kaltenbrunner’s cellphone that showed him sitting on a couch with Mr. Kadyrov. The investigators also determined that Mr. Kaltenbrunner had been in Chechnya shortly before the killing, which is when, Mr. Israilov’s supporters say, Mr. Kaltenbrunner received the final instructions from Mr. Kadyrov to kidnap or kill the whistle-blower.

The authorities also determined that a close aide to Mr. Kadyrov met with two of the suspects in the killing — Mr. Kaltenbrunner and Mr. Bogatirov — before Mr. Israilov was shot and that Mr. Kaltenbrunner placed a call to the aide’s cellphone number immediately after the shooting, while the group fled.

The aide, Shaa Turlayev, is a former rebel who has been accused in Russia of organizing political killings for the Chechen president. A copy of Mr. Turlayev’s Russian passport and an electronic airline ticket used by Mr. Turlayev were found in the getaway car.

Robert I cannot hep but notice that “Three Chechen exiles are in custody in the case: Otto Kaltenbrunner, who is accused of being the local organizer of the crime; ….”

Makes me wonder whether this Kaltenbrunner is any relation to OberGruppenfuehrer Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunne, the last head of the RSHA in Berlin and successor to Reinhard Heydrich.
Where in this key position as head of the Security Police (SIPO) and the Security Service (SD) Kaltenbrunner not only controlled the Gestapo but also the concentration camp system and the administrative apparatus for carrying out the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”

Makes me wonder whether you, Bohdan, is any relation to Bohdan Koziy, a Ukrainian war criminal, member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. He was involved in the displacing of Jews into ghettos. He shot Bernard Kandler, who had tried to escape from a truck that was taking him to a ghetto; Lusi Rosiner, a fourteen-year-old hiding in a barn, and the four-year-old daughter of Oskar Singer.

RuSSia’s Today Retard!!! You do not need to prove your stupidity. It already is a proven fact and will continue as such, because in your case brain damage is permanent.

I note that you are back under another alias, that of Voice of Unreason. But the cold fact remains that you are still as stupid as ever.

You continue with that extremely unbelievably bad habit of yours of not reading the comments to understand what is being discussed and then making up some irresponsible and irrelevant bad fable.

Personally I just cannot wait until LR wakes up to you and again gives you the big boot, as sadly, you add nothing of value to the intelligent comments of this blog. In fact you detract from them.

Hint! enter into discussions with Dimwit Dmitry, where I’m sure the two of you will get on superbly with each other.

By the way baboon I was not born until after WWII, (oops the great patriotic war to you) so that destroys this latest of your lies, but nevertheless adds only to the myriads already in your collection.

In fact, when Nazi Germany and Communist Russia were close allies and having joint victory parades in occupied Poland, I bet your Grandfathers were busy imparting all the dirty lessons of the Gulags to the SS in the joint training programme the SS & NKVD were running…

Dimwit Dimitry, gee you ask stupid and irrelevant questions? is that on account of your NKVD mother being a dumb “stukach”, or an even dumber Lubianka toilet cleaner.

Anyway I’ll try to alleviate those strange voices in your 99% empty skull. Here goes, as after all “ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer?”

Q1. “did you have any Polizei relatives?”, only ‘uncles J.Stalin, L Beria and now V. Putin”. But other than that, NO! none other.

Q2. “You would make a perfect one, sure.” Dah, stupid, why would I join the NKVD. My christian belief’s in The Almighty and his teachings make such an abhorrent idea extremely loathsome to me. But while on the subject how do like your KGB, Nashi and OMON jobs? Beaten up any old lady lately? Go on don’t be shy just spill your guts to this old “father confessor” I’ll then show how you can go about it to save your worthless soul.

Q3 “You need to find some fitting Treblinka.” Well bird brain that would have been extremely hard seeing as I was not even born then. But, the KGB still has it’s GULAG’s running, so a little whisper in you idol V. Putalin’s ear will (I’m sure) work miracles for your transfer to this Siberian Paradise. Trust me Dimitry you’ll be a big “HIT” there – as in thump, thump I mean.

But i didn’t mention anything about Ukraine, and sorry i don’t have any plans of getting their too. And if you are from Russia Dmitry can you please elaborate on how Indians are treated there. Why is there so hate for non Russians, honestly i was thinking of going to Russia as it is a beautiful place i thought, special your Russian orthodox churches(the design not the archbishops) but then i did a bit of research, and had an horrifying experience on how Indians and Hindus were treated there.And yes please don’t divert as i am talking about Russia and not any other country. But if any Russian comes to work in India i would be more than happy to meet Him/Her and discuss about your culture and also show them our cultures and why they say that India is the largest democracy. Cool down people of the world as the future is one world and no future is hot headed racism & Nazism, harsh and stone age regions beliefs & countries and people criticizing each others and finally nuclear Weapons. The time is short, the clock is ticking, change your way of thinking and come closer or face the consequences >>no one live the nuclear holocaust.

Also sorry it’s not
“harsh and stone age regions beliefs” but “harsh and stone age religious beliefs” in my last comment.

Also Instead of wasting precious time of this short life in hating each other lets have fun, music and dance. As these bring peace and togetherness. The Future is Mixx!!! You’ll observe more successful and less problematic countries have more fun and think less of stupid life and time wasting things. ;)

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner (born December 13, 1970, in Kirchdorf an der Krems, Austria) is an Austrian mountaineer. In summer 2007, she married her mountaineering partner Ralf Dujmovits and lives in the Black Forest (Germany).

Her interest in mountain climbing developed at a young age, and by age 13, she completed climbing tours at the local Sturzhahn. As she pursued her nursing training in Austria and Vienna, she continued to hone her skills by participating in numerous ski, ice, and climbing tours. At age 32, Gerlinde climbed her fifth 8000m, Nanga Parbat, and decided to pursue professional mountain climbing fulltime.[1]

Together with Edurne Pasaban and Oh Eun-Sun, she is the only woman who has climbed twelve of the fourteen eight-thousanders.

Bohdan wrote:” Stick to the subject matter of this bog RTR! you baboon. ”

What subject? The subject here is: April 30, 2010 — Contents

Oh, you mean you are ordering me to stick to the subject, started by you, of investigating namesakes and making stupid accusations? OK:

“I cannot hep but notice that “Three Chechen exiles are in custody in the case: Otto Kaltenbrunner… Makes me wonder whether this Kaltenbrunner is any relation to OberGruppenfuehrer Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunne”

They aren’t. Read British white supremacists, and you’ll find all asians are racists. But that’s vice versa nevertheless. Same here. If Britain would behave like Russia, there’d be an Indian Queen. Or ethnic Chinese US President, to speak of the US.

Stay smarter than the average Westerner is, your country’s history deserves you to be.

Polish prosecutors want Russians to explain why light bulbs in lamps illuminating runway at the Smolensk airport were allegedly changed just after the crash which killed 96 people including President Kaczynski.

“Prosecutors have decided to open an investigation into this in case it is directly related to the tragic catastrophe,” said Col. Zbigniew Rzepa from the Supreme Military Prosecutor’s Office.

A day after the crash the Belarusian daily Westi Witebska published photographs of Russian soldiers and policemen who were changing the light bulbs. The daily suggested that the lighting system at the military airport near Smolensk was faulty.

Google machine transtation (it’s no wonder the format was changed, YouTube does it with every file uploaded):

For the Military District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw also received the opinion of the ABW Office forensic research on the recording film of the disaster of 10 April 2010, published on the Internet. The poll showed that the recordings are short speeches of men and women in Russian men and speeches in Polish.

Certain words was unable to play due to the large amount of interference, and a small distance signal to noise ratio. In the study, no evidence was found to make interference with the continuity of the record, however, was the fact that the recording format of modification and re-write to the file. Please note that material submitted for test recordings were of poor quality.

According to experts, it is possible that the records were sent repeatedly subjected to compression, which could wipe out even the most visible signs of interference in their continuity. Regarding the possible sounds of gunshots, experts said that because of the presence of strong interference, including possibly originating from the gusts of air, a small signal to noise ratio, suspected of modifying the format of recording, it was not possible any measurement analysis of the sounds-like shot. This issue will be the subject of further proceedings.

Whatever the case Prosecutor of the Russian Federation in accordance with the principle of territoriality, started its own investigation into this disaster. The current legal status is not possible to conduct the investigation by Polish prosecutors in another state.

Robert wrote: “The video shows three moving silhouettes, arms, person jumping from the plane, laughter and the pilot’s voice calling for help are heard.”

Robert, when you report this particular idiocy, which was originally fabricated by by provocateurs on Youtube, do you agree with what you quote, or did you post it to show how far anti-Russian PR provocations can go?

According to Russian investigation? Or your ass? The Polish internal security service ABW analyzed it (originally it was supposed to take them 2 days since April 14, but eventually the military prosecutors announced the results only two weeks later), and I’m afraid they found no proof for your theory. They will now continue to analyze it further.

@do you agree with what you quote,

I quoted the actual press release below. They talk about “the voices” in Russian and Polish and the “shot-like sounds”. And this is what they will analyze now.

I asked you if you agree or not, that’s all. Here is the video, and tell me if you can see any “three moving silhouettes, arms, person jumping from the plane” there or not, or if you can hear any “pilot’s voice calling for help”:

“The Polish internal security service … will now continue to analyze it further. ”

LOL. It will take them at most 1 hour to conclude that this is nothing but hallucinations of insane russophobes like yourself.

I am wiling to bet $100 that the Polish internal security service won’t find anything criminal in this video. Are you willing to take the bet? I bet you aren’t.

Robert, could you please tell me how you know that the Polish internal security service has spent “over 400 hours” analyzing this video? Security services keep such information classified. Feel free to quote any Polish internal security service official you wish.

Over 400 hours passed since April 14, when they said they would be done with this in two days. Yet 14 days later they said they found no proof for a hoax theory and will continue their investigation into this. And you may keep your 100 Internet Dollars.

The other things:

-Photos of the Russian troops (the FSB uniforms according some media) changing navigation lights in the airfield shortly after the disaster. First ignored by media as an Internet hoax, turned out to be very real and it’s now being officially investigated by the Polish side (but they can’t really do anything about it, only ask the Russians).

-The Russian lie about the exact time of the crash (“8.56”). Many days later changed to 8:36, and the Polish side still don’t know the exact time. (Yes, even this, completely basic thing is still a mystery.)

-The Russians also lied about how the plane supposedly circled 4 times over the airfileld, trying to land again and again, and how the Polish pilots supposedly didn’t sepak Russian.

-Ambulances were not sent “because there was no one to rescue”. Eventually they arrived, but it’s not disclosed when. The resucers said they searched for live people, and the first reports said 3 people were found alive. (For an example of a Russian “rescue operation”, see the aftermath of the Moscow theater gassing in 2002.)

-The black boxes issue. Taken by the Russians for the analyses, two of three will not be returned, and only the Russian written reports will be given to Poland. And this is just ridiculous. Russia also conducted autopsies on the corpses (before sending them to Poland), and Russia is keeping the plane parts.

-No international commission. Poland totally mishandled it and screwed-up, giving Russia completely free hand without any negotiations, limited themselves to the observatory status only, and the Polish investigation is strictly limited to Poland. NATO generals were killed in the crash, why there’s no NATO investigation?

-Continued from the above, about the end report of the investigation. It will be prepared by the Russians, and Poland will be only given 60 days to submit an answer, which the Russians may ignore, and that’s all. Just great.

Mateusz Martyniuk and Zbigniew Rzepa, press spokesmen of the civilian and military general procurators. I gave you the link to the press release, now learn to read.

“Work hours”, funny that. If the large part of the Russian civilian leadership and the whole top military command were wiped out in Poland, would the FSB also investigate on this only 8 hours a day? Well, maybe so. It’s Russia, after all. (The metro stations were opened just hours after the recent bombings, destroying all evidence.)

No comment on the Russian lies? Okay.

Btw, some families of the victims are creating an association “to get the whole truth about the tragedy out”. It’s provisionally headed by Wassermann’s daughter.

Robert wrote: “Mateusz Martyniuk and Zbigniew Rzepa, press spokesmen of the civilian and military general procurators. I gave you the link to the press release, now learn to read.”

You did. But my Google Translate of this statement (which was in Polish) says nothing about when they received this video, how much time they spent analysing it. I don’t see anything about “finding no proof for a hoax theory”. And there is nothing even remotely resembling the claim that “the video shows three moving silhouettes, arms, person jumping from the plane, laughter and the pilot’s voice calling for help are heard.”

In other words, my translation shows that everything you say about the statement by Mateusz Martyniuk and Zbigniew Rzepa is a lie. In fact, I will add this translation later.

So, since you claim to have read and perfectly understood this statement, what exactly do you want me to see there?

For the Military District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw also received the opinion of the ABW Office forensic research on the recording film of the disaster of 10 April 2010, published on the Internet. The poll showed that the recordings are short speeches of men and women in Russian men and speeches in Polish.

Certain words was unable to play due to the large amount of interference, and a small distance signal to noise ratio. In the study, no evidence was found to make interference with the continuity of the record, however, was the fact that the recording format of modification and re-write to the file. Please note that material submitted for test recordings were of poor quality.

According to experts, it is possible that the records were sent repeatedly subjected to compression, which could wipe out even the most visible signs of interference in their continuity. Regarding the possible sounds of gunshots, experts said that because of the presence of strong interference, including possibly originating from the gusts of air, a small signal to noise ratio, suspected of modifying the format of recording, it was not possible any measurement analysis of the sounds-like shot. This issue will be the subject of further proceedings. “

@You did. But my Google Translate of this statement (which was in Polish) says nothing about when they received this video, how much time they spent analysing it. I don’t see anything about “finding no proof for a hoax theory”. And there is nothing even remotely resembling the claim that “the video shows three moving silhouettes, arms, person jumping from the plane, laughter and the pilot’s voice calling for help are heard.”

Yes, “I did”: after linking this APA note, I searched for the actual press release (which was hard to find, as it was ignored in the English media) to see what they actually wrote. What’s so hard to understand?

In any case, let’s cut to the chase. Please quote to me the exact words (preferably translated from Polish into good understandable English or Russian, because I don’t know Polish) of Polish officials that you want me to read. So far, I have found nothing in their words that relates to your various claims, especially the amount of man-hours they spent on this video or that “the video shows three moving silhouettes, arms, person jumping from the plane, …. and the pilot’s voice calling for help are heard.”

If you blame me for not understanding your rants – fine. Just give me the understandable translation of their words – and I’ll read it.

1. You wanted a link for this. Because you obsesively want to catch me”lying”.

2. I shrugged and provided. Maybe I should ust ignore you.

3. You’re still foaming about something. I don’t care.

@So far, I have found nothing in their words that relates to your various claims, especially the amount of man-hours they spent on this video or that “the video shows three moving silhouettes, arms, person jumping from the plane, …. and the pilot’s voice calling for help are heard.”

1. It was a direct quote from APA (quoting CNN Turkey in turn).

2. I found it strange, so that’s why I looked for (and found) the actual and complete wording in Polish. You wouldn’t even know about it if not me (it was pretty hard to find).

3. Then I posted it too, translated. (You didn’t even notice. Or pretended to. Or something.)

I’m now writing in points, becase you’re too stupid for a normal conversation.

Also bonus points for completely ignoring the Putin Commision’s lies about the circumstances and even the exacts time of the crash (Poland doesn’t even know when the plane really crashed), the lights-changing incident, the issue of lack of ambulances and initial reports of 3 survivors, etc.

It was a huge mistake to leave the investigation practically in the Russian hands only. Russians would never agree to this (and never even agreed for the repeated offers by the FBI to investigate the terrorist attacks).

@Who is this “I am Russian” guy and why are you ranting about him?

“I am Russian” (vel “I’m Russian”) was a poster here before you. He spoke really broken English and was also hella retarded, like you, but differently. Even more, I’d say. Thinking about it now, I kind of miss him. Good times.

Investigators probing the murder of a Chechen refugee in Vienna have uncovered strong trails that lead straight to Ramzan Kadyrov, opening the unprecedented possibility that Austria might press charges against the Chechen president.

For many long years, Russia’s population has had an opportunity to observe the extraordinary relationship that ties a simple Chechen to his highly-placed Moscow patron. Such marriages are made in heaven: last week saw yet another demonstration of this secret agreement by which the protégé receives a lifelong right to kill anyone who, in his opinion, deserves to die.

The story of the attempted contract killing of Isa Yamadayev, who last week published an open letter to President Medvedev in the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, is unique in that Ramzan Kadyrov is for the first time becoming personally implicated in a serious criminal case. After the testimony he gave within its framework, the Chechen leader is bound to become a suspect in the organization of three murders – or, at any rate, of one.

This should surprise no one. It is only a couple of weeks since State Duma deputy Adam Delimkhanov – a relative and close associate of Kadyrov – emerged unscathed from the Dubai court’s accusation of having masterminded the killing of Sulim Yamadayev, Isa’s brother.

One might recall other high-profile cases, in Russia itself and abroad, but there is little point. Why discuss individual cases, when the right to kill an unrecorded number of citizens has long been granted to the present Chechen leader, and has seldom been reviewed. The only changes in the license to kill have involved its extension from the territory of the war, first to Russia and then to the whole planet.

The summer the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to Russia, I paid 50 rubles ($1.75) to ride a rickety chairlift up its Olympic mountain. It’s called Krasnaya Polyana, which means red meadow in Russian, and it’s where all the ski events will be held.

Back in Soviet times, an all-expenses-paid family vacation in Sochi was a perk the state awarded only to its best workers. Even in summer, it wasn’t hard to see why.

Nearing the top, the lush pine forest gave way to fresh alpine grass and trailing wisps of fog.

Then, all of a sudden, soldiers.

Armed men aren’t that unusual in Russia. When I was the CBC Radio correspondent in Moscow from 2001 to 2005, even the security guards at the local rink where I took my son to play hockey on Saturday mornings carried Kalashnikovs.

But here they were at the top of one of Russia’s premier ski resorts. Near the soldiers, construction crews poured concrete for what looked like military bunkers.

Maybe these were just footings for a new Olympic chairlift. But when I asked one of the soldiers what the workers were building, he pointed his assault rifle towards the mountains in the distance.

This is Kim’s blog only she has the right to say who can or can’t post not you Mr Dim-Wit, Robert’s posts are interesting if he wants to post 6 or 20 times consecutively and Kim doesn’t mind then he can, Mr Dim-wit you don’t make the rules, I suggest YOU develop your own blog (which know one will bother with) then YOU can impose YOUR rules otherwise shut your stupid “gob.”

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